Office space dividing systems are constructed of a plurality of office space dividing panels, which may be directly connected together in desired configurations, or interconnected via posts or other suitable connectors. U.S. Pat. No. 3,762,116, which is assigned to the same assignee as the present application, is an example of an office space dividing system which utilizes posts to support vertical edges of space dividing panels.
It is common to cover first and second major opposed flat sides of a rectangular space dividing panel with rectangular fabric pieces for sound absorption and esthetics. Each space dividing panel has an outer perimetrical edge which defines first and second substantially continuous peripheral spline grooves. During assembly of a space dividing panel, each fabric piece is manually placed on a major face of a space dividing panel and the edges of the fabric piece are held in the spline grooves by spline beads, similar to the attachment of a screen to a screen door. Application Ser. No. 07/523,772, filed May 15, 1990, now U.S. Pat. No. 5,056,577, entitled "Office Space Dividing System", which application is assigned to the same assignee as the present application, is an example of a space dividing panel which includes spline grooves and spline beads for holding fabric pieces on the outer surfaces of a substrate.
It takes a considerable amount of time and assembly skill on the part of an assembler to manually stretch a fabric piece and place a spline bead in a substantially continuous spline groove which extends about all four edges of a support frame, while maintaining desired tensions in X-Y frame and fabric directions, i.e., in the directions of the width and length (height) of the panel. Thus, the quality and appearance of the resulting panel depends upon the skill of the assembler, and the manufacturing cost of the panel includes manual fabric attachment time. It would be desirable, and it is an object of the present invention, to provide a new and improved space dividing panel, and new and improved methods for assembling space dividing panels, which enables fabric pieces to be automatically attached to a substrate or frame.